subject: Painting In Bali Island [print this page] Balis art culture is renowned for its diverse and sophisticated forms, such as painting, sculpture, woodcarving, handcrafts, and performing arts.
During the first part of the twentieth century, Bali has witnessed new varieties of Balinese art developed.
Balinese traditional paintings were known to be restricted to what is now known as the Kamasan or Wayang style prior to 1920s. These Wayang style paintings could be seen as a visual narrative of Hindu-Javanese epics: the Ramayana and Mahabharata, as well as a number of indigenous stories, such as the Panji narrative. It is no wonder that Bali luxury villas guests have seen many paintings depicting demons and magical figures taken from old Bali folklore and Hindu legends.
In the Kamasan or Wayang style of paintings, guests in the many luxury villas in Bali will see this painting style as two-dimensional drawings traditionally drawn on cloth or bark paper (Ulantaga paper) with natural dyes, of which the coloring is limited to available natural dyes of red, ochre, black, etc.
Moreover, Bali villas resort guests can the paintings rendering of the figures and ornamentations following strictly prescribed rules, since these paintings are mostly produced collaboratively for religious articles and temple hangings.
From the late nineteenth century onwards, Balinese arts had undergone many experiments with new types of art by Balinese. These experiments were stimulated due to access to new materials like western paper and imported inks and paint.
In the 1920s, many western artists visited Bali, who brought with them new canvas from western material, inks and paint. Because of this, Balinese traditional art painting has changed the style into modern art painting. With the arrival of many visitors and the new way of Balinese modern art painting, this had resulted in Bali becoming an artist enclave for avant-garde artists such as Walter Spies (German), Rudolf Bonnet (Dutch), Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur (Belgian), Arie Smit (Dutch) and Donald Friend (Australian) in more recent years.
And by the 1930s, because of new tourist markets, many young Balinese were stimulated to be involved in new types of art.
The Mexican artist Miguel Covarrubias has seen this evolution, discovering that Balinese art form had undergone a "liberating revolution", of which these local paintings were once severely restricted by subject, and style, that were used as decorative cloths to be hung in temples and important houses, serving primarily religious or ceremonial functions. Yet within a few years, Balinese paintings began to depict scenes from rural life.
In this period, the village of Ubud, Sanur and Batuan have predominated the Balinese art, being known for their paintings.
In Ubud Painting, guests in private villas in Bali can see paintings with more open spaces and exploring human figures.
Meanwhile Sanurs paintings tend to be more about erotic scene and animals, with much lighter style than Batuan.
Batuan paintings tend to have less color but are busier and are often in more dark and present legendary scenes.
Beside these three villages, some Balinese villages are also noted in Balinese painting history such as Young Artist School, Keliki.
